According to the latest figures from the Kauffman
Foundation, for each month in 2009, 340 out of 100,000 U.S. adults started a
new business. That statistic, the highest in the last 14 years, represents a 4
percent increase over 2008, or 27,000 more starts per month than in 2008, and
60,000 more starts per month than in 2007. What that means is that in 2009,
558,000 new businesses were created each month, signaling perhaps that the
nation's entrepreneurs are unabashedly paving the road out of the U.S.
recession.

Kauffman's findings, which are detailed in the Kauffman
Index of Entrepreneurial Activity: 1996 - 2009, reveal that entrepreneurship
rates by race show that African-Americans experienced the largest increase in
new business activity between 2008 and 2009. Rising from 0.22 percent in 2008
to 0.27 percent in 2009, the rate was the highest over the 14 years of reported
data.

Other key findings include:

Entrepreneurship growth was highest among 35- to 44-year-olds, rising from 0.35 in 2008 to 0.40 in 2009.

The oldest age group in the study (55-64 years) also experienced a large increase in business-creation rates from 2008 to 2009, contributing to a two-year upward trend to 0.40.

Among states, Oklahoma and Montana had the highest entrepreneurial activity rates, with 470 per 100,000 adults creating businesses each month. The other states with the highest rates were Arizona (460 per 100,000 adults), and Texas and Idaho, both with 450 businesses started per 100,000 adults.

The five states with the lowest rates of entrepreneurial activity were Mississippi (170 per 100,000 adults), Nebraska (200 per 100,000 adults), Pennsylvania (200 per 100,000 adults) Alabama (210 per 100,000 adults) and Minnesota (220 per 100,000 adults).

Among the United States' fifteen largest metropolitan statistical areas, Houston had the highest entrepreneurial rate (0.63 percent) in 2009. Seattle had the lowest rate (0.16 percent).